When Eleanor recovered from her Surgery, she marched into my room and said, “Get ready. You’re coming with me.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Tell you in the van,” she said. “Sister Joan is downstairs, ready to drive us.”
I hurried around, dressing and eating.
After filling Bunny’s food and water, I told him we’d be back. “Don’t know where I’m going, don’t know why, but I am going.” He sniffed his water then his food and turned his head up to me and batted his pink eyelashes, as if to say okay.
I crawled into the blue van and slid the door closed, Joan in the driver’s seat, Eleanor up front. Off we went through the hills. The windows were down and my hair blew. Sister Joan’s hair did not blow because of her wimple. Eleanor’s hair wouldn’t have blown even without her wimple because underneath it was just stubble.
“Where are we going?” I asked, grabbing the strap when Joan sped through a curve.
“To see our benefactor,” Sister Eleanor said.
“Benefactor,” I repeated. “I meant to look that word up.”
“A benefactor is one who supports us financially. Ours is Gaylord Lewis.”
“You work for Mr. Gaylord Lewis?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” she said. “He makes sure we have what we need. He owns the ranches we live on and allows us to live there for free and sell the peaches.”
What?
What?
No!
“But you own the ranch. It’s our home,” I yelped.
Sister Joan did her yawny laugh and said, “Her own ranch!?! We don’t own anything, Ruby Clyde. We’re nuns.” Then she honked the horn as if to say, The nuns are coming. Usually I liked Sister Joan’s weird laugh but not right then.
“That’s right,” Eleanor said. “Did you honestly think that I owned the ranch house and all the land around it?”
Not only did I think that Eleanor owned all that, but I practically believed I owned it too. A place that important to me couldn’t be owned by someone else. My world was crumbling around me, yet again.
Eleanor told me that we were going to Mr. Gaylord Lewis’s house at Lake Travis. Turns out he had been a professional football player. The connection between a nun and a professional athlete of any kind escaped me. Even so, he’d used his football money to make all kinds of businesses, but the biggest thing he did was support the church.
She couldn’t get me to respond to her story. I was swamped in misery. More than losing my home, if Eleanor didn’t own Paradise Ranch, then she wouldn’t have money for bail. And all that money I’d earned washing trucks wasn’t worth anything.
“I don’t care,” I said and pouted. If I could have crawled out of the moving van, I would have done it in a hot second.
“Ruby Clyde,” Aunt Eleanor said sharply. “Pull yourself together. We are going to ask Gaylord Lewis for bail money for your mother. And if you can’t be grateful for that, then all I can say is fake it.”
I could fake it. I didn’t like it one little bit, but I could fake with the best of them.
“And since you are taking this so badly, I ought to tell you one more thing. I am giving Mr. Gaylord Lewis notice that I will be leaving the ranch.”
“Leaving the ranch?” I yowled from the bottom of my feet. “Why can’t we stay?”
“I will be devoting all of my time and energy to helping you and my sister, thus I can’t fulfill my duties as a nun.”
“Eleanor, no,” I cried. Leaving the ranch and nundom. I thought she loved being a nun. Besides, she couldn’t just quit being a nun, could she? Weren’t there rules?
“You can’t un-nun!” I shouted. “Didn’t you marry God or something like that?”
“Ruby, Ruby, Ruby,” she said. “Calm down. I can and will quit anytime I wish. I’m Episcopalian, remember. We have our own ways of doing things.”
Yeah, sure, I thought, like chopping off heads whenever you want and robbing me of my home at Paradise Ranch. If you ask me, doing things your own way is a slippery slope to disaster. But we didn’t own Paradise Ranch. Catholic or not. Nun or not.
By the time Sister Joan stopped the truck in the shadow of a giant castle on Lake Travis, I was feeling like an orphan.
* * *
Sister Joan stayed in the van while we got out and walked to the largest door I had ever seen. What was the point of a door that tall? Did he expect giraffes to visit?
After Aunt Eleanor rapped the huge bronze knocker, an honest-to-God butler let us in and I thought, Oliver Twist, move over. The butler showed us into what was called “Mr. Lewis’s Office.” It was as big as a gymnasium, with a fireplace and windows that looked out on a sparkling lake. Colorful rugs covered the floor and animal heads hung on the walls, all kinds of things with horns. A full-sized stuffed bear stood on its hind legs beside the fireplace. Its mouth snarled open, teeth and all. Black furry arms stretched out in both directions, paws with claws. Mother wouldn’t have liked seeing that stuffed bear standing by the fireplace, but I was impressed.
Mr. Gaylord Lewis stood up from his giant desk, and he was the size of that bear he had stuffed.
“Gaylord,” Eleanor extended her hand to shake, but he swallowed her up in a hug.
“Allow me to introduce my niece, Ruby Clyde Henderson.” She made a hand gesture in my direction that reminded me so much of my mother, I almost barked.
He led us to the chairs near the fireplace, too close to the bear for my taste. I moved to the sofa and sat down. It was so deep that when I sat all the way back against the cushions my legs stuck straight out, boots pointing at the fireplace.
“Sister Eleanor tells me that you have the gift of healing,” he said.
I hung my head. “A lot of good it’s done me.”
“You don’t know that,” he said. “I believe in the gifts of the spirit. Some people speak in tongues. I was blessed with athletic ability. You, dear child, have the gift of healing. You have it whether you understand it or not. Have you ever thought of being a doctor?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered. “But I’d rather be a nurse.” I hadn’t met a lot of doctors in my life; I wasn’t sure what they did. But nurses, they put their hands on people and nursed.
Aunt Eleanor brought the conversation back to her mission. She handed a stack of papers to Mr. Gaylord Lewis. “Here’s the bond information you requested. And God bless you for agreeing to do this.”
He put on some skinny glasses that rode down low on his nose and read the papers. Nodding, and signing with a big silver pen. “That should be everything you need.”
That was it? I wondered how he had the power to do that, but I did not have any such power. What did he have to give? I would have given my life, wasn’t that good enough?
Eleanor came and sat close to me on the sofa. “And as we discussed, I’ll be leaving the order. This child needs me now, Gaylord. You know what we are facing.”
“I understand.” His eyes glistened. “But please, stay at the ranch. As long as you want.”
Yes! I yelled inside my head. Stay at the ranch! Stay.
But she declined firmly. “I need a few months to finish my business, but then we will make room for another nun.”
She took my hand and laced her fingers in mine. She gave it a firm jiggle and said, “It is not the number of people we serve, Gaylord. One is enough. This is my one.”
I couldn’t stay mad at her, not after she said that.
Mr. Gaylord Lewis said goodbye. He pulled me in for a smothering hug. My face smushed against his belly, that’s how tall he was. Over my head he spoke to Aunt Eleanor. “Keep me apprised of the situation.”
“Indeed,” Eleanor said. “It will take a few days, but I will let you know as soon as we have a date for the bail hearing.”
As we drove away, I thought about the $257 I had saved from the Catfish and had earned from washing trucks. Did it still count as me being easy and helping and making Eleanor happy?